Falls the Shadow (71 page)

Ellen nodded somberly. She liked her cousin Ned, was sorry that he’d been led astray by evil advice. She did not doubt that when the inevitable battlefield confrontation came, her father would prevail. But men would die, die for naught. “It’s so sad, Mama,” she said, “so sad…”

Night had fallen over Newport, but the darkness was flame-lit. Out in the harbor, the last of Simon’s Bristol ships were burning down toward the water-line, and wind-driven cinders swirled high above the castle, blown from the smoldering bridge that had spanned the River Usk.

Simon stood on the castle walkway, watching as the harbor fires were quenched, one by one, by the black icy waters of the Severn estuary. So much had happened so fast that he’d lost all sense of time; it seemed like days instead of hours since the Bristol transport ships had appeared on the horizon, their long-delayed deliverance. But as they approached the harbor, disaster struck. They were intercepted by three fast-moving galleys, lurking in ambush for the clumsy flatboats, from their mastheads flaunting the banners of the King’s son. As Simon and his men watched in horror from the shore, Edward’s galleys swooped down upon the Bristol ships like hawks upon pigeons. The fight was brief, savage, and one-sided. By the time it was over, eleven of the Bristol ships were afire, and as they floundered, began to sink, they dragged down with them Simon’s last hope for crossing the Severn.

And worse was to follow. While Simon’s men were mesmerized by the catastrophe taking place out in the harbor, a large enemy force was landing upriver. They were almost upon the town before Simon’s sentries sounded the alarm. Soon two battles were being fought, one on the heaving decks of the Bristol ships, another on the muddied banks of the Severn. Edward’s men had the advantage of surprise and numerical superiority; Simon’s soldiers had to give ground. As they retreated back into the town, for a time Newport’s fate hung in the balance. Simon finally managed to stave off utter defeat by setting fire to the wooden bridge that arched over Newport’s second river. He would later see the irony in that: one river his nemesis, the other his salvation.

Unable to cross the Usk, the attacking force withdrew, and darkness soon concealed the ugly evidence of the day’s carnage. Bodies were mercifully shrouded in shadows, bloodied ground camouflaged until the morrow. Only the fires still burned.

The wind was hot upon their skin; Simon’s face stung from exposure to flying embers and ashes. He’d ventured himself onto the bridge, and his hair was singed, so blackened by smoke and soot that he seemed to have miraculously shed decades, regained the raven hair of lost youth. He was flanked by two equally dark heads, Harry and Guy, gazing out across the harbor in stunned silence. Peter and Hugh le Despenser, too, were mute. What was there to say?

“Simon!” Humphrey de Bohun was hastening along the wall walk. “I did as you ordered,” he reported, in a voice hoarse with fatigue. “We’ve posted sentries at every approach to the town.” Seized by a sudden coughing fit, he spat over the wall, leaning upon the merlon for support. “My throat feels like I’ve been swilling sawdust; does anyone have a wineskin? That whoreson Edward is getting too good at this game! You think he’ll move in on the morrow?”

“Yes…which is why we pull back tonight. What defenses does Newport offer? No town walls, just an earthen bank and outer ditch—how long ere they breach that? We’ve no choice but to withdraw into the Welsh uplands. Llewelyn controls the upper Usk valley. At least there we will be safe from pursuit.”

They could take meagre comfort in that; there’d be considerable hardship in a retreat into Wales. During this past month, they’d soon sickened on the unfamiliar Welsh fare, yearning for bread and ale, neither of which was a staple of the Welsh diet. But no one objected. How could they? They were doomed if they stayed where they were, and all knew it.

Out in the harbor, the last flaming wreck disappeared beneath the waters of the Severn. Simon turned away from the wall. “We’d best make haste,” he said. “We’re running out of time.” For a moment, his eyes lingered on their smoke-smudged, haggard faces. “Jesú, the lot of you look like men on the way to the gallows! The prospect of eating Welsh food cannot be that disheartening, can it? I’ll not deny that this day was a disaster. But there’ll be other days. By now Bran will have gotten my last summons, alerting him to the urgency of our plight, to the need for speed. All we can do is retreat beyond the Usk, then wait for him to reach us.”

Simon paused, rubbing his hand wearily over his eyes; they were bloodshot, smoke-sensitive, swollen from lack of sleep. “The rest,” he said, “is up to Bran.”

Sir John d’Eyvill and his Yorkshiremen reached Kenilworth in mid-morning on the last day of July. As they rode down High Street, past the priory of St Mary the Virgin, toward the red sandstone walls of the de Montfort fortress, John experienced first surprise, followed by awe, and then dismay.

He was surprised to learn that Bran had arrived at Kenilworth only yesterday, for that meant he’d covered no more than nine miles a day, a slow pace even for an army. He was awed by his first sight of Kenilworth. The castle was situated at the junction of two streams, which Simon had dammed to flood the valley. Surrounded by a vast man-made lake, said to extend more than a mile, Kenilworth could be entered only by a fortified drawbridge at the end of a long, walled causeway. John had never seen such formidable defenses; there was even a sluice-gate to control the flow of water. He was impressed, too, by the size of Bran’s army; it numbered well into the thousands. John’s initial elation soon gave way to dismay, though, for this vast multitude of men was encamped out in the open, clogging the streets of the village, spilling out of the priory, sprawling in the sun by the lake’s grassy shore.

He found Bran’s command tent in a shady grove of oaks, within a stone’s throw of the lake. It was a stifling, humid day, the sky bleached white, the air heavy and still, and his soldiers looked yearningly at that beguiling expanse of bright blue water, churned up by hundreds of splashing, cavorting men. As John dismounted, he heard his name called, and turned as Baldwin Wake emerged, dripping, from the shallows. “You look half-broiled, Johnny. Why not wash off all that trail dust?”

“First things first. Bran’s summons to me was dated at Winchester on the seventeenth, fully a fortnight ago. What took you so long to reach Kenilworth?”

“You’re a hard man to please, Johnny. If we gave you a blooded stallion, I daresay you’d be too busy counting its teeth to say ‘Thank you.’ So we tarried on the way; is the result not worth it?” Baldwin waved an expansive arm about the crowded encampment. “With your arrival, we have twenty banneret knights in our ranks!”

Taking a towel from his squire, he rubbed himself vigorously before tucking it about his waist. “The response has been right heartening, Johnny. In fact, that’s what slowed us down. After Winchester, Bran sought men in Oxford and Northampton. He’s been casting his nets as wide as possible, rallying support wherever he can find it—amongst de Montfort retainers, knights of neighboring shires, the towns, even some of Gloucester’s tenants. Believe me, we’ve not been idle. Bran is bound and determined that this time he’ll not fail his father; he means to bring Earl Simon an army too vast to count!”

John joined Baldwin on the grass. “ ‘This time’?” he echoed.

“Did you not know? Bran is in Simon’s bad graces these days. Simon thought he’d been over-zealous in seizing Channel shipping. Then there was that trouble over the tournament; Simon was sorely vexed with Bran about that. Nor was he pleased by Bran’s lack of progress at Pevensey. He seems to think Bran might have had greater success had he spent more time laying siege to the castle and less time laying siege to Isabella de Fortibus!”

John grinned; Bran’s friends took merciless delight in teasing him about the coquettish yet elusive Countess of Devon. “I know Pevensey Castle is still holding out. What about the lady?”

“Oh, she might take Bran eventually—but not until she’s sure Simon will prevail. In the meantime, she keeps our lad on the hook, with just enough slack on the line, but ready to reel him in—if and when.”

This jaded prediction came from the Earl of Oxford; he’d waded ashore in time to catch the end of their conversation. Choosing to let the sun dry him off, he stretched out beside them in the grass while his squires retrieved his clothes. “If we be tallying up Bran’s sins, you’d best add Winchester to the list. He says his father will be in a tearing rage when he hears, although—”

“What happened at Winchester?”

“It’s one of the few towns holding fast for the King, and we’d probably have done better to pass it by. But we did not, and they denied us entry.”

“They did more than that,” Baldwin chimed in indignantly. “They took our messenger up onto the city walls, murdered him before our very eyes!”

“Jesú!” John sat bolt upright in the grass. “I trust you made them pay for that insolence.”

“Of course we did! We assaulted the town, took it with some help from the monks of St Swithun’s, who let us into the priory. It was the best sort of retribution, both swift and profitable!”

“And Bran thinks Simon will be angry about that? Why?”

“Well…some of our men plundered and burned the Jewry, too.”

To John, that was an anti-climactic answer. “So?”

“It does not make sense to me either, Johnny,” Oxford confessed. “But Bran swears that Simon will be wroth with us, what with the Jews having been taken under the protection of the Crown. As sore beset as we’ve been this summer, I’m not about to fret over some slain Jews. But Simon does put great store by his word, and if Bran wants to make amends by bringing him twice the men he expected, well, mayhap that’s for the best. I’ve no more desire to face down Simon in a fury than Bran has!”

“Few men have, Rob,” John said dryly. “I’m sure Simon will be pleased by your diligence. But in all honesty, he might well fault you for your speed. It has been a month, has it not, since he sent Bran that summons?”

“Why should another week or two matter? You do not truly think he’s in such danger—Earl Simon?” Oxford and Baldwin laughed in unison at so preposterous a notion. “The Earl is the best battle commander in Christendom; did he not prove that at Lewes?”

John was touched by their faith in Simon; he was also chilled by it. They were not novices to battle, but they seemed remarkably innocent to him in their readiness to confer divinity upon Simon. He deferred to none in his admiration for de Montfort’s martial skills, but any man born of woman was vulnerable to mischance, to errors of judgment, to the vagaries of fate. He would have told them that, had he thought they’d heed him. He was only thirty, three years older than Baldwin, five years senior to Bran and Oxford, not a great gap in age. Yet he found himself marveling at their raw youth, and it occurred to him that such eager disciples would only have reinforced Bran’s deep-rooted belief in his father’s invincibility. Well, he was here now; mayhap he could instill a sense of urgency into their enterprise.

“Whether or not there was a need for haste,” he said bluntly, “there can be no excuse for the laxness here at Kenilworth. Whatever was Bran thinking of, to let his army encamp outside the castle walls? Look about you: men sleeping in the sun like overfed cats, taking baths in the lake, dicing, chaffering with harlots. I expect to find some whores with an army, but outnumbering the soldiers? What did you do, empty the Southwark stews? This camp is a disgrace. All you lack is a company of players, complete with jesters, monkeys, and mayhap a dwarf or two!”

“They’re due in tonight,” Baldwin said, straight-faced, to the amusement of those within earshot. “If I did not know better, I’d swear you were a fugitive from a Franciscan friary! It’s hot as Hades; we’d fry in the castle. After eating dust for days, Bran thought our men were entitled to a little ease, some time to scrub off the grime of the road. As for the women—God help the commander who’d begrudge his men a chance to spill their seed ere the battle begins!”

“If I were planning a drunken revelry, I’d for certes invite the lot of you,” John said coldly. “But I doubt if that is what Edward has in mind.”

Oxford decided this was an opportune time to intervene. “Truce! Johnny, what you’re saying makes sense. But Baldwin is right, too; there’s not room enough for us all in the castle. And Edward is more than thirty miles away, at Worcester. He is not about to launch an attack upon a castle like Kenilworth; whatever his other failings, he is not crazed!”

“I can see one small flaw in that argument; you’re not sheltered behind Kenilworth’s walls!”

“But how would he know that? Second sight?” Baldwin pointed out triumphantly, and John conceded defeat. Mayhap he’d have better luck with Bran.

“Is he in his tent?” he queried, and they nodded, watching expectantly as he stalked purposefully across the grass. Lifting the canvas flap, he ducked inside, but a moment later, backed out hastily, red-faced. “Why did you bastards not tell me he was with a whore?”

They were laughing too hard to answer. John was turning away in disgust when a tousled dark head poked through the tent flap. “Johnny? I thought that was you! We need to talk. Can you come back in a quarter hour?” The flap opened wider, giving the men a glimpse of a flyaway mane of tawny hair, a glimpse of skin much paler than Bran’s. Quite unfazed by her nudity, the woman raised up on tiptoe, whispered in Bran’s ear. He grinned. “Make that a half hour, Johnny,” he said, and dropped the tent flap.

They were awaiting Edward in the Chapter House of the Benedictine priory at Worcester. But even that vast stone cavern could not stave off the oppressive heat, and the men were soon sweating, snapping at one another.

Thomas de Clare truly believed in the rightness of Ned’s cause, but it occurred to him that he had no liking for most of his confederates in this quest of theirs. His eyes swept the chamber, narrowing in critical appraisal. Few could abide William de Lusignan, save mayhap his wife. He had no quarrel with de Warenne, but he found the Marcher lords to be a thoroughly bad lot. Roger de Mortimer, in particular, roused all his suspicions. De Mortimer was half-Welsh, for his mother, the Lady Gwladys, had been a daughter of Llewelyn Fawr, and Thomas wondered now if that tainted blood could explain his savage temper, his puffed-up pride. Nor did he hold John Giffard and William de Mautravers in any great esteem. Like him, they had fought for Simon de Montfort at Lewes, like him, had then switched sides. Thomas saw his own defection as a return to his true loyalties; if not for his brother, he’d never have forsworn Ned. But Giffard and de Mautravers had been swayed by greed, by fear of losing ill-gotten gains, having fallen out with de Montfort over a refused ransom and lands they’d unlawfully seized after Lewes. They’d so far shown great fervor in their newfound loyalty to Ned, but Thomas was not impressed; a converted Jew, he thought, is the first to eat bacon, to flaunt his crucifix.

Voices rose sharply, a brief, ill-natured exchange between the Marcher de Mortimer and the Earl of Gloucester. Thomas watched his brother warily; Gilbert was already complaining to him about de Mortimer, with the rancor he’d previously reserved for Simon de Montfort and his sons. It takes little to set tempers ablaze in weather like this; if Ned does not come soon, we’ll all be at each other’s throats.

Only one man present seemed at ease. Stretched out on a monk’s bench, Davydd ap Llewelyn appeared to be dozing, equally impervious to the heat and the squabbling. God rot him, Thomas thought resentfully, why does he not sweat like the rest of us? What a motley crew we make: a renegade Welsh Prince; a pack of Marcher cut-throats; that French whoreson, de Lusignan; a couple of self-serving turncoats; Gilbert, who collects grudges like a beggar collects alms; and me, dragged along—will I, nill I—in his wake. God help him, Ned deserves better.

At that moment, Edward entered the chamber, trailed by a disheveled youth in a travel-stained tunic. Edward strode toward the central pillar, came right to the point. “I have just learned that my cousin Bran arrived at Kenilworth Castle yesterday eve. We cannot permit him to join forces with his father. If we leave Worcester by late afternoon, we can reach Kenilworth by dawn on the morrow, can fall upon Bran’s men whilst they still sleep.”

There were murmurings at that, but no outpourings of enthusiasm. Edward knew why; despite his impressive successes in the Severn valley, he’d yet to live down that rash charge at Lewes. It seemed, he thought sourly, that one headstrong act, one heedless mistake, could haunt a man till the end of his days. The looks he was getting now were distinctly skeptical. Roger de Mortimer, never one to tread lightly, blurted out boldly, “I see no logic in that. Why strike at the whelp instead of the sire?”

“When you’re facing two foes,” Edward said coolly, “it makes more sense to deal first with the lesser threat.”

“But I thought the son’s army is far larger than Simon’s!”

“Think you that numbers alone assure victory? Did you learn nothing from Lewes? I know my cousin well; the Brans of this world are born to be battlefield heroes, not battle commanders. Simon is penned up in Hereford, his supplies running low, his horses and men wasted and bone-weary after a month in Wales, but even so, he is the dangerous one.”

“It still sounds daft to me,” de Mortimer protested, undaunted. “Kenilworth is thirty-four miles from here. How could we possibly get there by dawn? That’s a seventeen- or eighteen-hour march!”

“We’ll make it in less than fifteen,” Edward said, and they all looked at him as if he’d taken leave of his senses. Davydd stirred and stretched, before favoring the English King’s son with a lazily mocking smile.

“So whilst we lay siege to Kenilworth, Simon de Montfort awaits our coming at Hereford, and dies of old age…is that the plan?” he drawled, evoking laughter even from avowed enemies like de Mortimer and de Lusignan. Edward alone was not amused.

“Do you truly think me so foolish as that?” he asked, in a dangerously soft voice, and the laughter stilled. “I agree that Kenilworth Castle could likely hold out for years. But it so happens that we need not besiege it. You see, my cousin Bran has obligingly encamped his men in the town.” He saw their disbelief and beckoned to the youth in the shadows. “My lords, I should like to present my best spy.”

Thus summoned, his agent stepped forward into the light. He was a thin youngster, slightly built, too nondescript to attract notice, ideal camouflage for one plying such a hazardous trade. He did not seem intimidated by his highborn audience, saying composedly, “Lord Edward speaks true. I saw his cousin’s folly with my own eyes. They pitched their tents by the shore of the lake, sent out no scouts, and posted but few guards. When I rode out of Kenilworth, they were drinking and carousing and bathing in the lake. Never have I seen a better opportunity for ambush.”